Thursday, January 23, 2014

Forbes Magazine this week came out with their list of America's Top 100 Most Promising Companies for 2014. Smashwords was named #69.

The editors at Forbes evaluated hundreds of companies before making the final selection. Forbes based their selection on growth (both in sales and hiring), quality of management team and investors, margins, market size and key partnerships.

Our most important partnership is our partnership with writers. I founded Smashwords to put the power in publishing in the hands of writers. We make it fast, free and easy for any writer, anywhere in the world, to professionally publish and distribute an ebook.

Every day I wake up thankful that over 80,000 authors and publishers
around the world have chosen to partner with Smashwords for their ebook
publishing and distribution. Every day, every member of the Smashwords team is 100% focused on your success. We serve at your pleasure, and we'll never stop working to innovate new opportunities to connect your books with readers.

As reported by Forbes, and also in my Smashwords Year in Review post, Smashwords had revenue of $20 million in 2014, up from $15 million in 2013. 100% of our revenue comes from the sale of ebooks, and over 90% of it comes from our awesome retail distribution partners Apple iBooks, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Sony, Flipkart, Oyster, Scribd, Baker & Taylor and others. We don't sell publishing packages or services. The money flows from readers to retailers to Smashwords to authors. Our business is 100% aligned with the interests of authors. We only make our commission if we help you sell books. Our job is to simplify your publishing, distribution and metadata management so you can spend more time writing and less time on everything else.